


Nothing But Ashes

by angellwings



Category: Chicago Fire
Genre: Angst, Arguing, Emotional Hurt, F/M, Idiots in Love, Mutual Pining, One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-04
Updated: 2021-02-04
Packaged: 2021-03-15 22:34:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,485
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29196930
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/angellwings/pseuds/angellwings
Summary: Sylvie doesn’t really like to curse, not even inwardly to herself. She has no problem with other people cursing but it’s just never been her way.Today, she makes an exception.
Relationships: Sylvie Brett/Matthew Casey
Comments: 60
Kudos: 154





	Nothing But Ashes

**Author's Note:**

> **A/N:** So, I had an idea for a super angsty scene and I could not get it out of my head. I hope the show doesn’t do this but consider me writing this a way to present to you the worst case scenario and how it might work in our favor. (Also, heavily features boys being dumb because WOW are Casey and Severide dumb.) 
> 
> Thanks for reading! (I would say happy reading but um...yeah.)
> 
> xoxo

******

_“No, with every hit,_

_I'm gonna quit,_

_But who am I kiddin' I just can't put you down,_

_So I keep hangin' around,_

_Watchin' cigarettes burn out,_

_'Til all the neon gets turned out._

_There's nothing left but empty glasses now._

_It's all flashes now,_

_Smokin' memory that ain't nothin' but ashes._

_In the low lights,_

_These done-me-wrong songs hit me so right._

_I was so on fire for you it hurts how,_

_Fast that a cigarette can burn out.”_

_-“Burn Out” by Midland_

******

Sylvie doesn’t really like to curse, not even inwardly to herself. She has no problem with other people cursing but it’s just never been her way.

Today, she makes an exception.

_Jesus. Fucking. Christ._

She knew she shouldn’t have come here, but she’s a nice person and Stella needed her. Sylvie thought it would be easier for her to face Matt than for Stella to face Severide so she’d sucked it up and agreed to swing by Severide’s loft and pick up the training resources Stella needed for a Girls On Fire meeting today.

Now, she wishes she didn’t love and respect Stella quite so much because just as she was about to knock the door opened, revealing Matt and an extremely familiar looking redhead.

It takes her five seconds of silence to register what she’s seeing. (She counted.) It’s _Sydney_ from the billboard accident, looking disheveled but happy. Her dress is wrinkled as if it’s been on the floor all night and her hair is lazily tousled, but it’s the massive hickey on her neck that _truly_ makes it obvious.

Matt’s lips on her own neck are still fresh enough in her mind for that to sting _the most_.

Sydney makes a startled noise as if she wasn’t expecting to see anyone, but Matt’s entire face falls and he freezes on the spot.

“Oh hey!” Sydney says brightly. “I know you. You’re the paramedic I talked to outside the house, right?”

Sylvie takes a deep breath and pastes on a hopefully convincing smile. “That’s me, Sylvie. And you’re...Sydney, right?”

“Wow,” she replies. “Good memory. But then again I’m sure the woman who was nearly smashed to pieces by gentleman’s club billboard would kinda stick out in the old memory.”

Sylvie forces a chuckle and nods. “It was sort of hard to forget.”

But not for the reasons Sydney thinks.

Matt doesn’t say a word. Silence settles between the three of them, stilted and tense. Sydney seems to sense it and clears her throat nervously.

“Well, I should go. I have to be in the office for a meeting in like an hour,” she says turning in the doorway to face Matt. She kisses his cheek quickly. “I had fun. Call me later?”

He finally moves his panicked gaze from Sylvie to Sydney and nods, smiling weakly. “Yeah, of course. And me too.”

Sydney gives Brett a genuine friendly smile as she passes her to reach the elevator. “Nice to meet you officially, Sylvie.”

Sylvie nods again because that’s all she seems able to do right now. Aside from seethe in jealous, slightly unjustified, anger. “You too.”

With that Sylvie turns, barges through the loft door, and marches toward Severide’s room.

“I’m just here to pick up something for Stella,” she informs him in the most apathetic voice she can muster. “Is Severide in his room?”

“No, the shower,” Matt replies, but his brow is furrowed and his mouth is set in a deep frown. “Should we talk about what just—“

She cuts him off with a loud shaky inhale. “No, we shouldn’t. It’s not any of my business. Do whatever you want.”

Severide’s door is open so she goes inside without asking permission. Stella told her it was the blue CFD duffle in the bottom of the closet. Matt follows her, his gaze heavy on her back. Sylvie shoulder’s the strap and then pushes by him, her chest grazing his in the cramped doorway.

God, just a few weeks ago he was practically laying on top of her, a welcome intrusion into her space. Now she feels like she can’t get away from him fast enough.

She’s almost reached the door again and almost escaped him, but as she reaches for the doorknob he speaks.

“I think it’s a mistake to not talk about this.”

She laughs, dryly and bitterly, tears building in her lashes. 

“What is there to say?” She asks, whirling around to face him. “Except that it confirms everything I thought I knew.”

Her words are accusing. She can’t help it. She didn’t even _want_ to say them but his statement was the last straw. If he wants to talk about mistakes then her biggest one is falling for yet another unavailable man.

His eyes narrow and he gives her a look that’s offended but also confused as if he doesn’t know why he’s offended. “What does that mean?”

How does he not understand? She’s tired. Tired of talking, tired of explaining why she’s hurt, tired of feeling like no one she wants will ever want her in return—

It’s an exhaustion that goes bone deep and hits her all at once. It causes her bitterness and her frustration to override all of her typical filters.

“It means your feelings for me couldn’t have been very _real_ after all if you’ve already found someone to take my place,” she answers with a scoff. “It means you’re still in love with Gabby and anyone else is just someone to keep you company until she decides to come back. _That’s_ what I thought I knew. Thank you for reassuring me that I’m right.”

Matt gapes at her. His jaw works as if he’s trying to form words but he looks completely lost like her words have blindsided him.

But how can they? She told him. She told him she knew he was always in love with Gabby. Her reaction to Sydney can’t be a surprise.

Finally, he shakes himself and stops merely blinking at her.

“ _That’s_ what you think? Gabby is an issue because you think I’m—?” He cuts his questions short and pinches the bridge of his nose, eyes closing tightly while he grimaces.

He looks as if he’s in pain and, against all her better judgement, the caretaker in her wants nothing more than to reach out to him — help him. _But no_. She can’t.

“You asked me for space, Sylvie,” Matt says with a deep sigh. “I was giving it to you.”

“Yes, and clearly that’s been so very hard on you,” she quips sarcastically, sniffling to keep herself from crying.

Her heart has been breaking and he’s been out on the town having the time of his life...with another woman. God, if that didn’t track with everything else in her life lately. How much more could she lose before she cracked up completely? Was the Universe determined to find out?

“No.” Matt’s voice hardens as he shakes his head. “You don’t get to do that. You don’t get to turn this around as if it’s all on me. I _want_ to try. I told you I don’t regret kissing you and I don’t think Gabby is an impossible obstacle. You’re the one who said we couldn’t happen. That was _you_. I’m trying my damndest to keep away from you and give you the space you asked for—“

“But you don’t have to make it look so easy,” Sylvie replies, words nearly choked by her unshed tears.

“Easy?” He asks incredulously. “You think this has been _easy_ for me? Watching you flirt with Grainger at Molly’s and having to deal with you barely even looking at me at 51...you think that’s been _easy_?”

“I think it’s been a hell of a lot easier for you than for me. You have a choice in all of this, Matt. I don’t. I can only go by what you tell me and you haven’t told me much. I asked you a very clear question and you couldn’t give me an answer. And then you tried to tell me that, aside from what you feel for Gabby, you also have feelings for me. So, you either still want Gabby or you don’t know what you want — and neither answer makes me want to jump into anything with you.” 

Her volume is increasing as her wounded heart is trying to claw its way out of her throat. She’s coming far too close to exposing all of her vulnerabilities. She stops and takes a breath to calm her pounding pulse and her spiraling hurt.

“What is the alternative?” She asks quietly. “If you can’t tell me who and what you want with confidence then what am I supposed to do?”

He stares at her for a lingering quiet moment. She’s not sure why, but it feels like he’s seeing her with fresh eyes. She can’t explain it, but he looks as if he suddenly understands something. 

He swallows thickly before answering her question with one of his own. “What if I could? What if I answered your question, right now, and gave you the answer you wanted? Would you even believe me?”

She wants to answer him, but there’s no answer on the tip of her tongue. Her brain is full of white noise. Would she believe him? Oh, god, she’d like to say yes but…

She’s not sure.

The fact that she wouldn’t trust his answer even if he gave it to her is a new revelation and it throws her for a loop. Words to answer him are just out of reach. Now she’s the one gaping at _him_.

“Yeah,” he scoffs. Disappointment and sorrow cloud his blue eyes as he gives up on waiting for her answer. “That’s what I thought.”

“I have to go,” she says, gulping down all the emotions he’s pulled to the surface. It’s a lackluster end to this argument— discussion? Conversation?— she knows, but she has no more emotional energy left to do anything else aside from walk away. “Stella needs this stuff.”

He nods, blinking rapidly as he looks at anything but her. “Sure.”

She bites her bottom lip, blinking away tears. Crying will solve nothing. The time for tears is over. They’re very clearly at an impasse. He’s not even fighting her on it this time, not that she expected him to. The brutal truth of the matter is that she has no choice but to grit her teeth and accept their fate.

Whatever she fantasized this was never happened and it never will happen. It was over before it ever really began. She can’t sit around hoping to feel differently or thinking some magical day will come where she’s no longer in love with him. Clearly, if she wants to go on with her life and have the kind of partnership she’s always dreamed of then she can no longer be passive.

It’s time to pick herself up, push through the pain, and move on. No more one foot in, one foot out.

She’s letting him go, once and for all.

******

The door shuts behind her. Somehow, the scuffing of the door against the frame and the clicking of the knob locking into place sound desolate and resigned. It doesn’t make sense to associate those sounds with an inanimate object but he can’t say he gives a damn at this point.

He’s too pissed at himself to be concerned about possibly losing his mind.

How did he not see it? How did he not hear what she was trying to tell him with her question? Or what she said between the lines in his quarters? She told him what she wanted, what she thought, what she was afraid of—He simply wasn’t listening.

And now he might have fucked it all up beyond repair.

All because he wanted to wallow and lick his wounds. He could have gotten his shit together sooner. He could have sat down for two goddamn seconds and _processed_ their conversations and analyzed what she revealed and what went wrong but he didn’t.

Instead, he gave in and let her go and then tried to distract himself with the first remotely interesting woman who came along.

And now Sylvie thinks…

Sylvie thinks his feelings for her were some sort of illusion or, worse, a _lie_.

Yes, she asked for space. It’s not all on him. 

But she’s right.

He had a choice. He could have fought for her. He could have made himself clearer or simply stopped to truly try and understand the problem. He could have done so many things to let her know _how much_ he wants her.

He had a choice and what he did was much worse than not choosing Sylvie.

It’s much worse because he _didn’t_ make a choice at all. He took the cowards way out and avoided choosing all together.

He deserves an empty wasteful relationship with Sydney. He deserves to watch Sylvie’s life from the outside, desperately missing the days when he used to be part of it. He deserves every bit of misery he’s feeling.

Because he’s a fucking chickenshit coward who’s just lost one of the most important people in his life. Yes, that’s right. He’s lost her. She made that very clear with her lack of answer to his question.

How can he fix it if she doesn’t believe a word he says?

His hands fist at his sides. She thinks he wasn’t truthful with her in his quarters that day. That he told her a lie.

 _A lie_. God, that cuts the deepest. 

He’s never lied, not to her. But that doesn't matter. Whether he lied to her not, she doesn’t think what he feels is real. She doesn’t _trust_ him.

Having her trust mattered more to him than _anyone_ else and now he’s lost it. Possibly for good.

She’s lost faith in him, in their friendship.

If he doesn’t have her trust then he has no hope of ever having _her_.

His nails bite into his palms as he balls his hands up tighter. Despair and rage and _hopelessness_ overwhelm him. It’s the hopelessness that does it, he thinks. It’s the hopelessness that finally pulls the fraying rubber band, otherwise known as his composure, to its breaking point.

Honestly, he’s not entirely conscious of what happened. One minute he’s tense and coiled with self loathing and the next his fist is embedded in the wall, breaking the surface and creating a hole. When he realizes what’s happened, he doesn’t bother to move.

The pain radiating in his hand is the least of what he should have coming to him.

“Christ, Casey!” Comes an outraged voice from the corner of the living room. “What the hell happened?”

“Sorry,” Matt mumbles, not bothering to look over at Severide, as he finally withdraws his fist from the wall. “I’ll fix it later.”

“I don’t give a shit about the hole, man,” Severide says with an eyeroll, tightening the towel around his waist. “What I am concerned about is the fact that the apartment was perfectly peaceful when I got in the shower and now fifteen minutes later you’re demo-ing my walls with your bare hands. What did I miss?”

“Sylvie came by to grab some things for Kidd.”

Severide’s eyes darken for a moment and then drop to the floor. Casey knows Kelly is having a hard time with this separation. He’s currently there himself so he understands better than most. “Okay, and?”

“If it wasn’t over before it definitely is now,” Casey replies, voice dripping in defeat.

“Save the commentary and tell me what happened?” Severide asks while towel drying his head.

“Well, what happened is that she showed up just as I was walking Sydney to the door,” Matt explains, rubbing a hand over his eyes. He’s got a whopper of a headache building between his temples.

Severide winces loudly. “ _Ouch_.”

“Yeah,” Casey replies. “We argued, established that I stand even less of a chance with her than I did before, and she left.”

“And that’s when you punched the wall?” Kelly asks. Matt nods and then Severide continues. “Okay, so what now?”

“What do you mean ‘what now’? There is no ‘what now’. I told you. It’s over.”

“That’s such bullshit,” Severide says, shaking his head as he crosses to his bedroom. “It’s clearly not over.” He steps into his room but shouts through the half closed door. “I’ve only seen you punch a hole in a wall one other time and it was for this exact same reason.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” Matt asks in confusion.

“You used to pull this same move with Dawson all the time,” Kelly says as he emerges in jeans and a t-shirt.

“What move? I don’t have any moves.”

“Yes, you do. You’re so damn selfless that you never fight for what _you_ want,” Severide tells him, tossing a first aid kit at him. “You’re in love with Sylvie, Case. It’s freaking obvious. Do something about it.”

“I can’t,” he answers, thinking back to Sylvie’s painful silence when he asked her if she’d believe him.

“You can. You just won’t.”

“No, I can’t. She doesn’t trust me anymore. I could scream how I feel about her from the top of the aerial and she’d still doubt me,” Casey tells him with huff. “What’s the point?”

“Okay, so you lost her trust. Earn it back.”

“It’s not that simple.”

“It is, actually. It won’t be easy. It’ll take work. But it _is_ that simple,” Severide urges him. “And you can start by actually admitting outloud how you feel about her.”

“I don’t see how—“

“Say it.”

“Severide, this is ridic—“

“I don’t want to hear anything else except you admitting it.”

“You know, you can be a real son of a—

“ _Say it, Casey.”_

“Fine! Fine, alright? I’m in love with Sylvie! There, ya happy? It doesn’t do either of us a bit of good but there it is! I’m _in love_ with her!”

Severide smirks at him and clamps his hand down on his shoulder. “Great, now pick yourself up off the mat, bandage your bloody knuckles, and _fight for her_ , you dumbass.”

“Could say the same thing to you about Kidd,” Matt grumbles as he sets the first aid kit down on the kitchen counter. “You realize she’s twice as stubborn as you are and she’s gonna be at Brett’s until you sack up and actually talk to her, right?”

“Man, shut up. She’ll come back,” Severide protests, though he doesn’t sound as confident as he did immediately after she left.

“It’s been two weeks, Severide. You sure about that?” Matt asks, pulling out the gauze and the alcohol wipes. 

Kelly has been miserable without Stella and Matt would hate to see the two of them make a mistake as stupid as breaking up...again. If he has to prod Severide a little to make him act, then so be it.

“No,” Severide says with a pensive sigh. His eyes shift from Matt to the coat rack by the door. He squares his shoulders, scrubs a hand through his hair, and then strides toward it. “Time to take my own advice.” 

He stops at the coat rack, grabs his jacket, his keys jangle in his pocket while he reaches for the door. 

“This is me sacking up and fighting for the woman I love, by the way,” Severide tells him, propping himself up against the open door. “You better be next. Brett won’t stay single forever.”

He watches Severide leave and thinks of Grainger, that lieutenant from Firehouse 40. Kelly might be more on the nose than he thinks. Matt may have just pushed her right into the other man’s arms.

He stares at his busted hand and then the hole he left in the wall. He’s already cleaned the broken skin or else he might have taken another swing.

He’s an idiot.

He wasted so much time on distractions. He could have spent the last few weeks proving himself to Brett. Instead, he did the opposite. So now, he’s essentially starting from square one and the journey forward is almost entirely uphill.

It’ll be miserable work — heartbreaking and slow — but isn’t Sylvie worth it? He can’t stop thinking about her and what’s more...he doesn’t want to. He wants _her_. He wants to prove he can be the kind of man she wants. (The man she once thought him to be.)

It’s time to stop pretending he can make due with someone else. The need to be with her overwhelms him and consumes every thought or feeling in it’s path. He wants her and _only_ her. No one else will ever be Sylvie Brett.

Convincing _her_ of that is going to be the issue. He might not succeed. He might be too late.

But he’s damn sure gonna try.


End file.
